Technical Field
The present invention relates to a vehicle pillar structure.
Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (JP-A) No. 2006-273057 discloses a pillar structure where a front pillar is configured to include a transparent pillar member and a front pillar frame that holds the pillar member. Furthermore, the front pillar frame is configured to include a front pillar inner panel and a front pillar outer panel that are each substantially frame-shaped.
Moreover, the front pillar inner panel has reinforcement walls (reinforcement members) that bridge a pair of vertical walls of the front pillar inner panel, and the reinforcement walls are placed near the surface of the pillar member on the cabin side. Because of this, the front pillar inner panel can be reinforced and the pillar member can be reinforced.
However, in this pillar structure, the following is of concern. That is, when sunlight strikes the pillar member, the reinforcement walls heat up because of the infrared radiation in the sunlight, and the heat generated in the reinforcement walls is transmitted to the pillar member. For this reason, there is the potential for degradation and warping caused by the heat to occur in the pillar member.